


Almost Neverland

by thewolvescalledmehome



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blizzards & Snowstorms, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:20:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29617686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewolvescalledmehome/pseuds/thewolvescalledmehome
Summary: Of all the windows in the Stark house, Sansa’s was by far the easiest to sneak in through. It was also the only window Jon Snow had never climbed through.It takes ten years for Jon to be in a situation to see if hers is unlocked.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 20
Kudos: 244





	Almost Neverland

Of all the windows in the Stark house, Sansa’s was by far the easiest to sneak in through. It was also the only window Jon Snow had never climbed through.

The first time he’d climbed the lattice up to the roof, Sansa’s window was the one he went to first. He should have known immediately that it was Sansa’s, with the gauzy curtains and princess bed, but he didn’t realize that until he had tried to slide it open. It was locked, the lights were off, and he could see her sleeping, curled in a tiny ball. Instead of knocking, he inched along the roof until he reached the next window. This one was wide open, and while Robb was definitely surprised to see him, he didn’t ask any questions. He just tossed Jon a pair of pajamas and set up a sleeping bag for him.

Over the years, sneaking back over to the Stark house and climbing the lattice to the roof became routine for Jon. Any of the nights where his mom worked too late, or when he got too lonely, or when things got too loud, or too quiet—sometimes the quiet was worse—he would be sneaking onto the Stark roof and looking for who kept their window either unlocked or open.

More often than not, he would end up in Robb’s room, but not always. Sometimes Robb would either accidentally lock the window or wouldn’t be home—he’d be at some sports camp or a friend’s house. On those nights, he still never knocked on Sansa’s, even though it was the closest and safest.

He didn’t know if she ever slept with it unlocked, or if she even knew that he snuck past her window most nights. He never asked and she never mentioned it.

If Robb either wasn’t there or his window was locked, he would go to Arya’s. She was like Robb—no questions and just set him up with a sleeping bag on the floor.

As they all got older, Robb was home less often and when Arya started joining clubs and hanging out late, Jon had to keep trying the other windows.

Bran and Rickon either knew from Robb and Arya or they just didn’t care. They let him in and gave him a place to crash. He tried not to go to their room often—they were younger and shared a room, which meant there was a lot less space. And he knew Robb and Arya would never tell their parents that he actually slept there almost every night, but he was afraid of the younger boys either accidentally mentioning something or not understanding why they shouldn’t say _Jon slept over last night._

By the time they got to high school, they had a system and Jon was sleeping there every night. Friday and Saturday nights, he officially slept over in Robb’s room. Sunday, he’d sneak back after it was dark and everyone had gone to bed, and go through Arya’s window. Then he’d rotate between the boys, Robb’s, and back to Arya’s before it was the weekend and he could sleep over without sneaking through anyone’s window.

No one ever talked about the fact he would sneak over, not even at school. When they would part ways at the end of the day, it was never _see you later_ , it was always _see you tomorrow._

Their routine got him all through high school, until Jon’s senior year.

Senior year was the first time he almost checked Sansa’s window.

Senior year, Robb was a three-sport athlete and taking a few AP classes. Senior year, Arya had gotten her license and started dating Gendry. Senior year, Bran was old enough to understand but Rickon still had zero filter and that put Jon on edge.

There was a weekend in mid-May, a Saturday night, where Jon spent nearly fifteen minutes in front of Sansa’s window. It was the night of the senior prom. For obvious reasons, Jon was not going, and for obvious reasons, Robb was. Gendry had also dragged Arya, which while Jon found deeply amusing, left him shit out of luck because he forgot that a) she wouldn’t be there, and b) that Bran and Rickon both also had plans that weekend.

Which left him with Sansa’s window.

Jon couldn’t go home. He didn’t want to go home. It was barely home anyway. The Stark house had felt more like home for years—since the first time he climbed through a window and was greeted with pajamas and a pillow and no questions.

Swallowing his pride and steeling himself for either rejection or fear—Sansa Stark would absolutely be startled by him knocking on her window at ten-thirty on a Saturday night, or any night—he crouched in front of her window the way he had once as a ten-year-old.

It was dark, the way it had been seven years ago. He squinted, bracing his fingers against the glass to peer in. Even if he had to wake her, it was better than sleeping on the roof because that’s where it looked like his night was headed.

To his absolute disappointment, her bed was empty. Because it was fucking prom and of course Sansa was there, even if she wasn’t a senior. Three of the Starks were at prom, and the younger two were either at a sleepover or whatever Rickon was at.

He was fucked.

Jon sat back on the roof, back against Sansa’s window.

Where he stayed until Gendry dropped Arya off a half hour later. Jon was through her window as soon as her light came on.

“Please tell me you haven’t been waiting out there,” she said as soon as the window was shut behind him. Jon didn’t respond. “You forgot it was prom,” Arya whispered.

“I forgot Bran and Rickon were out too,” he amended. He didn’t add that he didn’t consider that Sansa would also be at prom.

If he was being honest, even though he had only tried her window twice in seven years, he knew it was always there. It was his security net. Even if, for some reason, all of the other windows were locked or the rest of the Stark children out, he could go to Sansa.

He never anticipated a situation in which none of the windows were open.

“You weren’t out there long, were you?”

“Not very,” he shrugged.

They both faced opposite walls as Arya changed from her formal clothes into pajamas and he changed into a pair of sweats she kept stashed for him. He had a set in all three rooms.

“Do… Do you have plans for after graduation?” Arya asked quietly, once they were both settled and the lights off.

“Get a job?”

“I meant with Robb going to college.”

_Oh. Shit._

He hadn’t thought of that. He forgot that Robb was going south for college and that meant he’d have one less window to climb through.

“I mean, I always keep my window unlocked. Maybe Robb will too, even once he leaves. Then you’d have a bed to sleep on instead of the floor.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

* * *

As a little girl, Sansa had once had a dream about a boy trying to climb through her window. In her dream, the boy was shadowed and trying to slide her window open before vanishing. When she woke up, nine-year-old Sansa first reached for the large book of fairy tales on her nightstand and flipped to the story Catelyn and Ned had read to her the other night. She immediately found the picture she was looking for—a young girl in a blue nightgown with hair like Sansa’s leaning out the open window. She knew the line beneath the picture said something about leaving the window unlocked.

After studying the picture, Sansa decided to crawl out of bed, climb onto her nightstand, and unlock the window.

Just in case.

Sansa, from that night on, even though she knew it was a dream, left the window open.

Even as she grew up and she stopped believing in fairy tales, Sansa still slept with her window unlocked. It was habit more than anything else. Part of her bedtime routine. She would brush her teeth, change into pajamas, brush and braid her hair, and check to make sure the window was unlocked.

Sometimes, when she slept over at a friend’s house, she even found herself unlocking the windows in their bedroom, which she knew was stupid. It was stupid for multiple reasons. It was stupid because it was a childish belief that she just could not stop clinging to. Even after she stopped wearing nightgowns to bed, took down the princess canopy above her bed, and convinced her parents to paint over the pixies that danced across her walls, something in her still believed in that dream she had. Something in her still held on to the idea of magic being somewhere in the word.

* * *

The first time Sansa suspected something was her senior year—the first year of Robb being at out of the house.

She and Robb shared a wall, which meant she grew up listening to the sounds of him moving around. She knew what it sounded like when he was in the room. She knew between nine and ten-thirty every night, he would turn on either music or a video game.

The quiet of the room being empty had put her on edge the first few weeks, but by the end of September, she’d grown used to it.

A _thunk_ woke her up around midnight, startling her. She was fairly sure it had come from Robb’s room, but that didn’t make sense because he wasn’t supposed to come home for a few weeks yet.

When everything was quiet, she thought she must have imagined it or dreamt it. But then something on the other side of the wall _creaked_.

Sansa got up and quietly opened her door. She didn’t know what she was expecting to see, but Robb’s door was shut the way it had been since he left for college a month ago.

Arya was standing shock still in the hallway though.

“What are you doing?”

“Peeing. Why?”

“I thought I heard something.”

“I tripped on the rug.”

Sansa was still rather confident that the sound had come from Robb’s room and not the bathroom, but it was midnight, Arya had clearly been up and doing _something_ , so she let it go.

* * *

Over the course of the year, she had been woken up other times by noises, but she eventually chalked it all up to the fact that Robb’s room being so quiet meant that she could hear into Arya’s or the boys’ now.

* * *

One night, Sansa was up late studying for final exams—books and notebooks piled high on her desk. She had tried studying with music on but once it seemed everyone else had gone to bed and the house was quiet, she found the silence helped her focus more than music did.

Because it was so quiet, and because her focus was slipping from the history of the country, she could distinctly hear that the sounds that had been waking her up were in fact coming from Robb’s room.

And now she knew what it was, too.

She recognized the sound of the window being slid open and the sound of feet landing in the room.

Her first thought was stupid, so stupid. Her first thought had been that dream she’d had as a child. About the shadowed boy who tried to open her window.

It was that—the childish and innocent belief in magic that she still had deep inside her—that propelled her next door.

She opened Robb’s door just as a shadowed figure slid the window closed. At first, she couldn’t believe that her dream had been real—except this was a man, not a boy, who climbed through the window.

It took her several seconds to realize the shadowed man was Jon Snow.

“Jon?”

He jumped, clearly startled, before turning.

“Seven hells, Ar—You’re not Arya.”

“Nope.”

Sansa hadn’t seen Robb’s room since he left, not that she was in there much before, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t left a sleeping bag on top of his bed, or a set of sweat pants and t-shirts on the bookshelf.

“Have… Have you been staying here?”

Jon looked around, no doubt picking up on the details that gave him away, before shoving his hands in his pockets and rounding his shoulders. He didn’t answer.

“I-it’s okay if you are. I won’t tell.”

He looked at her then, as if he had never seen her before.

Sansa had grown up with Jon in and around the house. He had spent nearly every weekend there for as long as she could remember. She couldn’t remember ever hanging out with him alone though. They would all have movie nights sometimes, or game nights, but that was all of them together. And that hadn’t been for a few years—not after they all got busy with sports and clubs and dating.

So maybe he hadn’t actually seen her before. Not really.

Jon nodded.

“Okay,” she whispered, mostly to herself. Mostly because she was realizing what that meant. “Okay. Do you need anything?”

“No, no. I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

She paused, looking around the room again, at him. She hadn’t seen him much, if at all, since Robb had started college. She thought he looked smaller somehow than she remembered. Or maybe it was the room that made him seem smaller.

“Okay,” she said once more before leaving, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Arya stood in the hallway.

“What were you doing in Robb’s room?”

Sansa stared at her. She thought Arya had to know. It certainly explained her reaction the first time Sansa had woken up to that sound after Robb had left for college. But, on the off chance that Arya didn’t, she didn’t want to accidentally. After all, she had told Jon that she wouldn’t tell.

“Nothing.”

Arya squinted at her.

“I thought he might still have his history notes from last year. I was hoping to use them,” she lied.

“Robb burned his stuff from finals during the bon fire last year.”

“Oh. Right. Well then. Good night.”

“Night.”

Sansa went back to her room and closed the door quietly behind her. On the other side of the wall, she thought she could hear Jon and Arya whispering.

Instead of returning to her studying, Sansa crouched in front of her bookshelf and quickly found the great book of fairy tales she used to keep on her nightstand. The book naturally fell open to the story she’d read so often as a child that she’d cracked the spine.

The one she’d read when she had the dream about the shadow boy in the window.

She traced her finger over the letters of the title at the top of the page and considered Jon Snow, who was probably the most lost boy she knew.

* * *

It took Jon much longer to fall asleep than normal. He kept waiting for someone to bust into Robb’s room, demanding what he was doing there.

Arya had assured him that Sansa wouldn’t tell. When they had bumped into each other in the hall, she hadn’t even told Arya—she’d told her some stupid lie about history notes. That had surprised Jon, but not as much as her initial statement of _I won’t tell_ did.

Sansa had always been the safety net, the last resort, partially because the two times he had tried her window it was locked, but also because she was the Stark he worried the most about telling. Rickon still set him on edge with his severe lack of filter, but Sansa had always seemed too good, too sweet to lie, to cover for him like the rest of them did. He thought that she would take one look at him climbing through the window and run and tell her parents that he needed help.

He never expected her to piece it all together and accept it with no questions asked, even though that’s what the rest of them had done.

The next night, even though he had made it out fine that morning, he was nervous that Robb’s window would be locked. He didn’t think it would be and he trusted Arya and Sansa when they both said that Sansa wouldn’t tell, but logic wasn’t the ruling force as he climbed the lattice.

Sansa’s light was off—it normally was when he came later—but the light of the moon caught something just below her window that made him pause. It was the cover of a book, the one that she used to tote everywhere as a kid. He hadn’t seen it in years.

It made him wonder. Why had the book reappeared the night after she caught him sneaking into Robb’s window? Was there a connection or was he looking for one?

Why was he looking for one?

Hoping for one?

Jon shook his head and moved past, fingers wedging against the sash of Robb’s window, steeling himself for it not to open.

It slid up easily—almost easier than it normally did.

He shut the window quietly and stood for a moment beside it, surveying the room. Something felt different.

It was the sleeping bag. The one he’d moved from Arya’s room to Robb’s after he moved to the dorms. It was gone.

Instead, the bed was made up, a blanket Jon had never seen covering it in place of Robb’s comforter he’d taken to college.

His sweat pants, his toothbrush, everything else was in the same place he’d been leaving it for almost a year. It wasn’t like all of his stuff had vanished.

It wasn’t until he was close enough to sit on the bed that Jon realized there was a small note folded on the pillow.

_I washed the sheets, so they’re clean. And the pillow’s new. The sleeping bag is under the bed if you want it, but I thought it’d be nice to sleep in the bed instead of on top. I’ll wash them again when Robb comes home for the summer in a few weeks._

The handwriting told Jon that it was Sansa who left the note. Arya never wrote in cursive, and he doubted any of the boys did either.

He changed slowly, waiting for something to happen. Every _creak_ and groan of the house sent adrenaline coursing through him. He slid between the sheets and lay corpselike on his back, unused to the sensations and lightness of the sheets compared to the scratchiness of the sleeping bag.

Before Robb left, he’d slept on the floor more often than not. Sometimes Robb would switch with him when they were younger, and sometimes if he was staying in the boys’ room, one would be out and he could sleep in their bed. Arya had tried to move one of the camping cots up to her room, but when Ned caught her, she couldn’t think of a good enough lie and the cot went back to the basement. Jon knew she did everything she could to try to make the floor more comfortable—sleeping bags and blankets piled up enough it wasn’t quite as hard as just the floor.

When Robb left, Jon moved the sleeping bag into his room and put it on the bed because sleeping in Robb’s bed without his permission felt wrong. Even though he knew Robb wouldn’t have a problem with it.

But Sansa’s note had given explicit permission. And she’d gone to all of that trouble to wash the sheets and make the bed.

That night, Jon got the best night of sleep he could ever remember.

* * *

The following August, Sansa elected not to live in the dorms. She was going to Winterfell U, which was easily within commuting distance, and most people she went to high school with who were also going were all living at home. It wasn’t uncommon and Sansa had no problem staying home.

Especially since it meant she could stay closer to Jon.

After that second night, the one where she’d remade Robb’s bed, Jon appeared at her open window the following morning, the sky more grey than blue yet. She had opened it last night, partially because it was warm, but also because she wanted to hear him leave. Sansa came to the window, pushing it all the way open, expecting him to come through, but he stayed perched on the roof.

“I didn’t want to wake you, but… Thanks. For the bed.”

His eyes were nearly the same color as the sky, she thought.

“You’re welcome.”

She was half asleep yet, leaning out the window and talking to a boy she normally only saw in shadows. The sun wasn’t fully up yet, and for a minute Sansa forgot that she didn’t believe in magic anymore.

* * *

To say they became close after that wouldn’t be entirely accurate, but maybe to say they were friends was.

It wasn’t so much that they would hang out, especially not with Robb home for the summer, but there was a quiet comfortability between them when they were together. Maybe it was that she was finally in on the secret. Maybe it was that she earned Jon’s trust in making the bed for him. Maybe it was that for the entire summer, she slept with her window open instead of just unlocked.

She wasn’t sure what the change was or what had caused it, but she knew in the handful of moments they shared where it was just the two of them that it was different than it had been before she caught him in the window.

* * *

The winter wind pierced Jon’s skin. His fingers had felt stung with cold a while ago and he cursed himself for not taking that pair of gloves Sansa had set out on Robb’s nightstand for him.

When she had caught him crawling through the window in his same leather jacket he always wore a few weeks ago, she had started pulling Robb’s old winter gear and leaving it out for him. He’d taken the coat but he hadn’t thought he needed the gloves.

Clearly, he was stupid.

His pockets weren’t doing much to help warm them and he stared at the lattice, wondering if it was even safe to climb with how stiff and numb his fingers felt. But he couldn’t stay out here any longer. The snow that had been nothing but flurries had picked up to the point the hems of his jeans felt wet from the slush he’d walked through. His ears ached from both the cold and the wind.

Jon knew as soon as he wedged his foot into the first diamond and tried to haul himself up that this was stupid. He could barely feel the roughness of the wood beneath his hands or the pinch of his toes jammed in a place that they hadn’t really comfortably fit for years.

It was that—a combination of the cold and the numbness he felt that caused him to first misplace his foot and in that same instant, lose the tenuous grip he held on a higher diamond.

He had been about half way up when he fell.

The snow cushioned his fall, but the landing and the cold stole the air from his lungs.

For a few seconds, all Jon could to was stare up at the clouds and hope he could move.

Gasping, he pushed himself to his feet, and everything, even the parts that had previously been numb, throbbed with pain.

It was pride more than anything that forced him back up the lattice instead of ringing the doorbell like a sane person.

This time, he managed to crawl onto the roof.

It was late—later than he normally ever came through—but Sansa’s light was on.

For the third time, Jon crouched in front of it, and for the first time, he knocked.

Sansa appeared on the other side of the glass and she opened it so quickly it almost startled him off the roof.

“It’s _freezing_ out, Jon,” she chided, helping him through. He could see the way she flinched at his touch. “Shit, _you’re_ freezing. I thought I left gloves out for you.”

“F-f-forgot to g-grab them.”

Jon knew he should tell her that he fell, but he was shivering and his teeth clattered too much for him to say more than what he’d already spoken.

“Are you bleeding?” she gasped, grabbing both of his hands and yanking him towards her. He nodded.

“F-fell. Off the l-lattice.”

Her eyes flashed up to his and the face she gave him almost made her look like Arya.

“Okay. I’m gonna grab some band-aids. Here, put this on. Your pants and jacket are wet. You’ll never get warm if you stay in that.”

Sansa handed him a fuzzy bathrobe and a pair of socks. He would really rather get his sweats from Robb’s room but he knew there was no way they were as warm as what Sansa had just given him.

When Sansa’s door clicked behind her, Jon tried to strip as fast as his numb and scrapped hands would allow.

It wasn’t until his jacket was off that he realized pretty much everything but his boxers were either soaked or at least uncomfortably damp. He hung everything on the back of her desk chair and pulled her bathrobe around his nearly naked body.

The socks were a little small but they were much thicker than his were.

Sansa appeared just as he sat, still shivering, on the edge of her bed.

“Are you bleeding anywhere else?” she asked, sitting beside him and putting one of his hands palm up in her lap.

“Don’t think so.”

Jon inhaled sharply through his teeth when she swabbed his scrapes.

“We have a doorbell, you know,” she said, placing a bandage over the worst of it and starting on his other hand.

“But then your parents would know,” he murmured.

The wind howling and the freezing wind altered both of them to the fact she had never closed the window behind him.

“Did you walk in all that?” she asked, once she’d closed the window and took his hand back.

It didn’t escape Jon’s notice that the window remained unlocked.

He nodded, but didn’t speak. He didn’t want her to continue this line of questioning.

To ask why he slept in her house every night, and had for years.

“There,” Sansa whispered, smoothing a second band-aid over his other palm. “You feel okay?”

“Just cold.”

Jon thought she might wrap him in a blanket and sneak him over to Robb’s room, or even to the bathroom for a warm shower, even though he was pretty sure that wasn’t how you were supposed to warm yourself up.

Instead, she stood, taking her hoodie off so that she was in flannel pants and a tank top, and sat back much closer than she had been before.

That definitely got Jon’s blood flowing.

“W-what are you doing?”

Jon blamed the stutter to his words on his shivering, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t the only reason why.

Her cheeks colored, as if she had been the one out in the cold and snow, but she took his hands in hers again, brought them to her mouth, and blew gently on them.

His heart was thundering loud enough that he was sure it would wake up the entire Stark house.

“Is that better?”

Sansa’s voice ghosted over his hands and she glanced up at him. Jon forced a swallow.

“Y-yeah.”

Jon wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, Sansa holding his hands so gently in her own, but as he warmed up he felt his eyes start to droop.

* * *

Sansa watched as Jon grew more tired and more relaxed in her hands. When his head started to tip forward, Sansa gently pushed him back and covered him with her fluffiest blanket. Then, she turned off the light, fetched another blanket from her closet, pulled out the trundle beneath her bed, and went to sleep.

* * *

When Sansa woke up, Jon’s hand hung down from the bed, just above her arm. She had almost forgot he was asleep in her bed.

It was still dark out, but that didn’t mean much for that time of year.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Jon whispered, voice rough. She rolled over to see him peering down at her.

“No.”

She watched him get up, crawling over to the end of the bed so he didn’t have to step over her, and start to pull his clothes from last night on.

“You’re leaving already?” she asked, sitting up.

“I always leave this early.”

“Oh. You’ll be careful, though, on the roof? It’s probably slippery.”

“Yeah, a’course.”

He slid her window open then. Sansa got up and pulled on the robe he’d just taken off. It smelled like him.

“You can stay here tonight, again, if you want. If the roof’s too dangerous,” she told him, as he began to climb out the window.

“Thanks.”

“You could even use the doorbell,” she joked, leaning her elbows on the sash. Jon snorted. She watched him inch along the roof until he got to where the lattice started. “Be careful!” she whisper-called as he began lowering himself over the edge.

His eyes met hers briefly and Sansa could swear she almost saw him grin.

She didn’t pull her head back in until she saw his dark form walking down the driveway.

* * *

Jon had absolutely not planned on going back to Sansa’s window the following night. Except he’d never been that warm. And that night of sleep was better than the first night he’d slept in Robb’s bed without the sleeping bag last May.

Which is how he found himself back in front of it and knocking for the second night in a row.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Until his sweatpants and toothbrush were in her room.

Until it became routine.

Until he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept in Robb’s or anyone else’s besides Sansa’s.

He told himself it was just because it was winter and because the roof was so slippery. It was a rougher winter than the last few had been.

Every night, her light was on, her window was unlocked, and the trundle bed was pulled out and ready for him. Even on the few nights where she’d fallen asleep waiting for him, she’d kept at least her lamp on.

* * *

The first night Jon had spent in Sansa’s room had been the coldest and snowiness day of the year so far. That night had nothing on what was happening outside right now.

He was so glad that after that first night, he had remembered to go back for the gloves because he knew with the wind chill it was way below zero.

Jon had been cold many times in his life. Never had he felt quite as cold as he did that night.

He often entered Sansa’s room still shivering with chattering teeth, but it had never been as bad as that first night, the one where he fell climbing the lattice. It was far worse tonight.

He could barely get his fingers under the sash.

For the first time since he climbed through, the lights were off.

Instead, a bunch of candles were lit on the vanity.

 _Please be unlocked,_ he prayed once he finally wedged his fingers in enough to open the window.

Normally, Sansa was either reading or watching something. A few times he had come so late that she was asleep.

He had never crawled through the window and not have her there.

Jon wasn’t sure what to do.

If it weren’t for the candles, he might’ve assumed she wasn’t actually home, but he knew she wouldn’t leave candles burning if she was out.

The candles confused him. It made the room seem cozier, more romantic, and the idea of Sansa making lighting them _for someone_ sent his head spinning.

He had never considered that he might not be the only person sneaking through the Stark windows—though he had no idea why anyone would do it in the current weather.

Unless they had to.

He was still standing where he landed—the most he’d moved was to close the window before realizing Sansa wasn’t there—when the door opened and Sansa came through carrying a candle in one hand, and her phone with the flashlight on in the other.

“Power’s out,” she explained. She didn’t seem startled or surprised to have him standing there. “Dad said it looked like it was the whole block. It probably won’t come back on until morning.”

That explained the candles at least.

And it was a far better explanation than the romantic lighting he thought they were supposed to be.

Jon nodded while he shed his jacket and freezing clothes, pulling on the sweats Sansa had kept out for him.

When he turned, he was startled to see Sansa’s eyes lingering on him. She hadn’t turned while he changed.

It must’ve been the lighting, he thought, that made her look a little rosier than she normally did.

* * *

Sansa hadn’t meant to watch Jon change. It was just that she hadn’t known where else to look. Normally, when he changed, she would focus on whatever book she was reading or show she was watching, but she hadn’t been doing either of those things.

She thought it was the lighting—the candle light—that made her feel suddenly so warm.

The wind whistled against her window, and Sansa watched the snow pile thickly on the roof. Not for the first time, she wondered what it was that compelled Jon to climb up to her window every night.

Jon stared at her and Sansa wanted to ask what he was thinking.

She wanted to ask why he had never knocked on her window until only recently, when he had been climbing through the rest of them for years.

She wanted to ask why, now that he did stay in her room, why did he stay _only_ in her room.

“Do you want a blanket?” she asked instead.

He nodded and she wrapped the fluffy one, the one that was fast becoming his, around his shoulders.

The motion brought her much closer to Jon than she normally stood.

Sansa knew what Jon smelled like. The blanket he currently wore smelled like him. The bathrobe he had used the first night had. The sheets on the trundle.

She had only ever smelled him _on_ other things though. A trace, left behind.

She hadn’t actually smelled _him._

The scent of cold and snow still clung to his skin, but there was something beneath that as well. Something subtle but something she had only ever smelled with him.

She had to keep herself from inhaling deeply. From breathing him in too obviously.

She doubted he would never come back through her window again if she did.

Jon shivered again, bringing their bodies even closer together.

She could feel the winter air still on his skin, even beneath his sweats and the blanket. The cold was coming off him in waves, and even with the warm candle light she thought he looked a little paler than usual.

That was why, she told herself, she wrapped her arms around his waist, beneath the blanket, pulling them so their chests were flushed.

He was so cold she might have shivered herself, except his arms were crushed against her back and he released a breath like a shudder against her neck.

In the seconds that stretched to minutes, Jon’s body slowly warmed against her own, but Sansa didn’t let go. And neither did he.

* * *

At some point one of them, Sansa wasn’t sure if it had been her or Jon, had moved them to the bed, where they lay cuddled on top of her comforter in the candle light.

“You don’t have to sleep on the trundle,” she whispered, pulling back just enough to be able to look him in the eye. “Since the power’s out,” she added.

“Are you sure?”

Jon had pulled back as well, but farther than she did. His head was on the other pillow now.

She hooked her ankle around his in response.

Sansa wanted to kiss him. She had wanted to kiss him that morning last May when he had crouched in front of her window to thank her for changing the sheets in Robb’s room.

She wanted to kiss him the first time he had climbed through her window, teeth chattering and shivering.

The wind howling through her unlocked window killed her confidence and kept her from leaning closer and closing that space between them.

“Your window’s unlocked,” Jon murmured.

“It’s always unlocked.”

“Always?”

“I haven’t locked it in years,” she admitted, even though she knew it had been nothing but a dream. “ _Peter Pan_ was my favorite story and I had a dream as a kid that there was a shadow at my window trying to get in, except it was locked. It’s stupid, I know, but I’ve never locked it after that.”

She thought Jon might have laughed at her, might have rolled his eyes at her childish belief in magic and fairy tales. Instead, he went rigid beside her.

“A dream? Do you remember much else about it?”

“It must’ve been ten years ago? Maybe more.”

“Ten years? You were nine?”

“Eight or nine, yeah.”

“Back when you still kept that book of fairy tales on your nightstand?”

“Yeah?”

She wanted to ask how he knew about the book but she didn’t because Jon was suddenly kissing her. It was light and tentative but his arms around her was strong and confident.

“Sorry—” he breathed automatically, pulling away before she could even kiss him back.

“Don’t be.”

“It’s just… It might’ve been me. Trying to get in your window, ten years ago. I went through Robb’s instead, ‘cause it was open. But I tried yours first.”

“And it took you ten years to try it again?”

“I wasn’t sure if it would be open.”

“It was.”

It was open—it always had been. She just hadn’t realized she had always kept it open for Jon.

* * *

Jon was lying in bed, Sansa’s legs wrapped around and between his, a fluffy blanket around them and the candles making the room glow.

Between her gentle touch and the warmth he felt, Jon could have easily believed they were in another world. One where magic was real and you didn’t have to grow up.

And a girl with an unlocked window would invite you in.

He didn’t want to fall asleep because he was terrified if he did, he would wake up on the trundle or in Robb’s room and it would have all been a dream.

* * *

When he did wake up, Sansa’s arms were still wound around his chest, and his legs still wrapped around hers. Her hair tickled his nose and it was that subtle detail that told him he wasn’t dreaming.

Sliding out from her embrace was the hardest thing Jon thought he had ever done. But the last thing he wanted was to get caught, after ten years. And it would be especially worse to get caught in Sansa’s bed. The trundle they could explain away. That had been no different from the nights he had spent in sleeping bags on the floor of other Stark bedrooms.

It would be much harder to explain why they were curled so tightly together, even if the power hadn’t come back on until just before dawn.

When Jon opened the window, he hadn’t expected quite so much snow to blow in. He heard Sansa’s gasp behind him.

“You’re leaving?”

“I haven’t gotten caught yet—I especially don’t want to get caught in your bed,” he told her, coming back over to her.

“Why not?”

Jon didn’t want to explain to her all the questions that would come up from him sneaking into the Stark house for ten years, or the ones from being in her bed specifically.

But Sansa wasn’t stupid and she probably already knew all of that.

She was asking if there was another reason.

Jon didn’t have one.

“Sansa… I have to go.” He could hear the strain in his voice. He didn’t want to leave.

“Or you could stay,” she whispered, taking his face in her hands and kissing him.

He had kissed her last night, but that had been a peck. This was an actual kiss. She almost dragged him back onto the bed.

She kissed him deeply. Deep enough that he thought he was back in that magical world from last night.

“So, you’ll stay?” Her breath ghosted over his lips, causing goosebumps to appear across his arms and shoulders. It was the first time he remembered getting goosebumps from something other than the cold.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay.”

Jon stepped back toward the window to shut it, and for the first time, he crawled back into bed instead of through a window in the dawn light.


End file.
